A Reason To Doubt You
by accioamber
Summary: Harry/Draco. Maybe Harry wants to be the bad one for a change. Warning, contains swearing,  rather innocent  slash and a little bit of domestic violence. Nothing too intense. I don't own HP, all rights belong to JK Rowling.


"I told you to stay away from me," Draco muttered, shooting Harry a glare and flicking his wand at the fire. Giant flames leapt from the logs instantly and warmth flooded the room. "How did you even get in here?"

"I've still got my key, obviously." Harry said. "Look, Dray, I'm sorry, I told you that a million times, I'll never do it again."

There was silence for a few moments and then Draco turned and looked at him. "Don't call me that."

"You're impossible, you know that? Could you just acknowledge that I'm trying to apologize to you? Everyone makes mistakes."

"You call it a mistake, but it's not. Not really." Draco stood, all hard angles and cold, silver eyes, staring Harry down. He'd let his guard down a few days go, showed weakness. If there was one thing his father had taught him that stuck, it was that a Malfoy never shows weakness. A Malfoy never lets anyone get the best of him. He'd made that mistake a few days ago, but not anymore. "What it _really_ was was you asserting yourself. Trying to show me that you're the one in control. No one will think of us as that haughty, cold Malfoy and the goofy, lovable Potter if you're _having your way _with me."

"No, what it _was_ was too much fucking firewhiskey and that look on your face!" Harry said, his cheeks flushing as he remembered the number of drinks he had that night, and the way Draco had looked at him when he had asserted that maybe Harry had had enough.

"Oh, the look on my face? What look is this, do tell?" Draco said.

"You know perfectly well what look, the look that plainly says 'I'm Draco _fucking_ Lucius Malfoy and what I say is the final word on everything and I am clearly better than you.' That look."

"Please. Let's not let the fact that you were drunk and I was looking at you like a prat change what really happened. You're sick of people telling you that we're such an interesting combination, because we're so different. Yin and yang. Hot and cold. More appropriately for the season, naughty and nice." Draco said, looking at their Christmas tree. "So you had too much to drink and you decided to be a little naughty instead of nice." If he closed his eyes, he could still smell the firewhiskey on his breath, the feel of Harry's fingers gripping his arms when he had shoved him up against the wall in the Leaky Cauldron, the burning stares of everyone in the pub as The Chosen One showed a side of himself they'd never seen. He still had the bruises from Harry's fingers on his arms and it'd be a while before he forgot (or before anyone let him forget) that he'd bloody cried, however briefly, in the middle of a crowded bar.

"That's not what happened at all, Dray, I swear," Harry said earnestly, reaching out to touch him softly. "I don't give a shite about what everybody thinks of us and I would never hurt you just to prove some point. You're nuts if you think I feel that way, anyways." He leaned closer to Draco, who let Harry's lips ghost every so lightly over his own, just because it felt _right_. "Anyways, it's Christmas. Spirit of the holidays and all that. So what do you say, do you forgive me?"

It felt good, being with Harry like this, but mostly because it was familiar. And the truth was that no, no he didn't forgive him, and he wouldn't just forget what had happened the other night. So he gathered his strength and pushed him away. "No, I don't."

They stood staring at each other for a few moments, Draco trying hard to keep his face looking cool and impassive. He watched as Harry went from looking shocked, to upset to...angry. "Fine. I guess I was stupid to think you could ever be anything except a proud Malfoy, that you could forgive me for one mistake."

Draco bristled at the way Harry was blaming him. "Yeah, I might be too proud for my own good , but at least I'm not so insecure about myself that I need to hurt my _boyfriend_ to feel like I'm better than him."

Harry's face reddened, and he turned, heading quickly for the front door of Draco's flat.

"Leave the key." Draco said, and he closed his eyes as he heard the metal _clink_ as it hit the ground, and the slam of the door as everything fell apart.

Harry slammed back his glass of Ogden's Best, ordering a second as Ron came and sat down next to him. "You alright, mate?" Ron asked.

"Wonderful." Harry said. "I'm working on getting drunk and realizing that I was a bloody fool for ever being with Draco Malfoy. He's just as big of a prat as he was when we were 12 years old."

"Well, I could've told you that." Ron said with a smile. "So what exactly happened last night?"

Harry paused, buying himself a moment by taking a long drink from his glass. It sounded bad, even in his own head, but he wasn't sure how much he wanted to tell Ron. He was bound to hear many versions of how things had gone last night-Merlin knew there had been enough 'witnesses'-but he wanted to tell it the right way. He mentally shook himself. No, this was silly. He'd done nothing worth bending the truth over. He hadn't been _right_ in what he did to Draco, but he had accepted that and tried to make his amends.

"Last night we went out to the Leaky for a few drinks and I got a little...I was drunk. I lost count of how much I drank last night. Anyways, after a while Draco told me that he thought I had enough and we should leave. And he just gave me that look. That condescending look he always gives everyone when he thinks they're better than them, and I did _not_ want my boyfriend looking at me like that. I snapped." Harry's face was flushed with both the drink and the memory, of the rage that he'd been filled with, blinded by too much alcohol, his brain fuzzy. "I shoved him against the wall, once, and I held him there. It was stupid, I know that, but I didn't _really_ mean it."

Ron stared at Harry, his eyes wide. He finally took a drink. "Wow. That's crazy. So, uh...did you talk to Malfoy?"

"Yeah. I went over to his flat, and tried to apologize but he's being a stubborn arsehole. He threw me out, told me to leave my key, so I did." He paused for a moment, then plowed forward. "Draco had the audacity to say that the reason this happened is because I wanted to be in control, be the 'naughty' one for once."

Ron raised his eyebrows. "Do you think that's true?"

"No!" Harry said quickly. "Draco'll come 'round, I suppose. Though I'm not so sure I want to even _try_ with him anymore."

Ron took a drink of his butterbeer and then cleared his throat. "You really think he's going to come around?"

"Yeah, he has to."

Ron, avoiding Harry's eyes, said, "I don't think he has to."

"Please tell me you aren't thinking that Draco's right."

"Well..."

"Ron, you've known me for 14 years. Would I have ever done any of that if I wasn't drunk?"

"No."

"Okay, so then you should be saying 'I know that you made a mistake but Draco's being a girl about this and it'll resolve itself.' That's what you should be saying."

Ron sighed. "Okay, you know that I'm your best mate, and that's why I feel like I need to say this to you. You keep saying over and over that this wouldn't have happened if you weren't drunk...but that doesn't make what you did okay."

"Ron-"

"No, hold on." Ron held his hand up, stopping Harry from interrupting. "I loathe Draco Malfoy and I think he's a huge prat...but nothing gives you the right to hurt the person you're with. You hurt him, Harry, no matter how slightly. You dated Ginny, remember? That summer before you came out. What if you'd done that to her?"

Harry blushed, remembering the summer he'd dated Ginny in a last-ditch effort to convince everyone that he was straight. He'd had a difficult time coming out, to everyone and to himself. "I wouldn't do that to Ginny." He said quietly.

"Yeah? You wouldn't? You weren't even in _love_ with Ginny, Harry. And you-ugh-bloody love Draco and that's how you treated him. If you can do it to him, you would've done it to Ginny." Ron stared at Harry.

"No, I would not. It was more Draco and his butting in where he wasn't wanted than anything else. He thinks he's so fucking _important_ and _esteemed_." Harry said, thoroughly annoyed at the direction this was going. He had met Ron for drinks to lick his wounds after the shame of what had happened with Draco, and to drown his sorrows; he hadn't counted on Ron turning on him and giving him a lecture.

"Alright. Well, I'm just saying that maybe you ought to think about what Draco said, about you doing it to have control over him. Because that seems like a real possibility." Ron finished the rest of his drink and then flipped some money down on the top of the bar. "Oh, and you also might want to think about drinking a little less. I don't think I've seen you entirely sober in...a while." He gave him a nod and then walked out of the place, leaving behind an angry and puzzled Harry.

Draco was alone. His flat was empty and silent, though he swore when he closed his eyes he could still hear the sound of the key dropping to the floor. He kept telling himself over and over that this was a good thing. They were complete opposites and had been since they'd met when when they were 11. It was ridiculous to think that the Boy Who Lived and the Malfoy heir could be together.

Well, the _former_ Malfoy heir.

That was what was killing him most. He'd given up a lot for Harry, more than he cared to admit or think about. They had dated in secret for months-only seeing each other at night, never going out in public, only spending time at Harry's-before Harry had insisted that Draco either put up or shut up. Harry bloody Potter had given him an ultimatum: tell his parents, tell everyone that he was queer, and that they were dating, or they would part ways and pretend it had never happened.

He could still Harry's voice in his head. _This is pointless if we're just going to keep it a secret forever, because we can never be anything more. So choose. Your parents and the lie you've been living, or me. _Us_. It's up to you, Draco._

Fuck if he didn't choose Harry. He told his parents that he was queer, that he had known this for as long as he could remember, and then he told them who his choice of mate was. He would never, as long as he lived, forget the way his father turned paler than ever, and how his mother had instantly burst into tears. A part of him had always thought that just maybe they would be okay with it. Hell, maybe they wouldn't even be that surprised. That wasn't the way it panned out, however. He'd been given yet _another_ ultimatum: find a nice girl, get married, and forget all of this nonsense, or lose his family, his inheritance, everything.

Yet again, he had chosen Harry.

So that was why it was so hard to know that this was really over between them. He had given up so much for him, and in turn, Harry had stomped on Draco's heart and betrayed his trust.

Funny. If you didn't name names, you'd probably have thought it was the other way around.

After Ron left, Harry spent a while mulling over what his friend had said. The only problem was that as he thought, he drank, and the more he drank, the less productive his thoughts became. He started out truly considering the idea that his mistake the night before came from a desire to be more powerful than Draco. He even started coming to the conclusion that he was nothing more than a scared, pathetic little boy who just thought he'd lived in Draco's shadow too long.

But then he started considering that maybe he wasn't the one with issues. Maybe it was Draco who was controlling and he didn't want to give any of that up! Several drinks later, he was convinced that Draco was obsessed with keeping him under his thumb and in an effort to continue that, he and Ron had teamed up together to bring Harry down. Several drinks after _that_, he had Apparated home, nearly splinching himself in the process, and fallen into his bed, snoring.

The next few weeks passed in a similar fashion. Harry got up, laid around his flat, drank, brooded about Draco, drank some more, then went to sleep. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he missed Draco. He loved him and maybe it was a testament to how much when he wrote the letter and sent it off.

_I miss you._

_-Harry_

It took a few hours for Harry to get a response, and when he read it, he imagined Draco wrestling with himself over whether or not to send it.

_Then come over._

_-D_

When Draco opened the door to his flat, they stood in awkward, uncomfortable silence for a few moments. Then Harry cleared his throat.

"I really have missed you, you know. Not just something I said to get over here." He said quietly.

"I didn't think it was." Draco said, then he stepped back so Harry could come in. They found themselves sitting on the sofa, and before Harry knew it, Draco had grabbed him and was kissing him. It felt right, like they were matched again, but still...there was too much between them to ignore. Harry pulled away.

"Hey, what's this?"

Draco sighed. "I thought you missed me."

"I did! But I missed more than this," Harry said softly. "I've been thinking, and you were right. About what happened at the Leaky. Something inside of me just snapped and I wanted more than anything to be the one with the power and-"

Draco shook his head. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Isn't that why you told me to come over?" Harry said, confused. "To talk about it?"

"No, I told you to come over so we could do this, and you're sort of killing the mood." Draco said, reaching out for Harry once again.

Harry sighed but kissed him back, and soon all thoughts of anything else had left his mind. It was rough and hot and he had forgotten himself, because he was pinning Draco against the couch. He let go of him and scrambled backwards as if touching him was like holding a hot wire. "I'm sorry," he murmured, "I promised I wouldn't do that anymore."

Draco sighed arrogantly. "You're so thick sometimes, you know? This isn't the same as what happened at the Leaky. Not at all."

Harry narrowed his eyebrows. "I'm not following."

Draco sighed yet again. "I said I didn't want to talk about it, but you clearly aren't getting it. The past few weeks, I've been thinking about what happened, about what you did and it wasn't right. It's the _way_ you did it that wasn't right."

"The _way_ I did it?"

"Without me wanting you to."

"But why would you ever want me to pin you down or hurt you or any of that?"

That earned another exasperated sigh, and Draco pulled Harry back on top of him. "Because maybe I like it, you idiot."


End file.
